


she was trying to show me how a life can move from the darkness

by mygalfriday (BrinneyFriday)



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen, but missy is a nosy little shit, in which the doctor doesn't want to talk about his wife
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-31 10:41:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15117665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrinneyFriday/pseuds/mygalfriday
Summary: Studying him appraisingly for a moment, she takes in the relaxed set of his shoulders and the softness around his eyes that definitely hadn’t been there the first time she encountered this regeneration of his. Finally, she murmurs, “Learned a few tricks on Darillium, did you?”The Doctor looks away and the light in his eyes dims just a bit.Or: five times Missy asks about River Song and one time she doesn’t have to.





	she was trying to show me how a life can move from the darkness

**Author's Note:**

> Story title from I Wanna Get Better by Bleachers. Big Finish is supposed to produce an audio of River and Missy but since it isn’t out yet and it won’t be for a while yet, I wrote this as if the two of them have never met. This was meant to be so much shorter but it…got away from me. Oops.

 

_i._

As far as prisons go, she’s certainly been in worse. Of course the warden is a touch grumpier than she’d prefer and there’s not much in the vault she could fashion into a weapon but there’s something to be said for having her own piano and takeaway whenever she wants it. And the company isn’t bad either, whenever her warden deigns to linger.

When he does, he sits in the armchair beside hers, rooting through his pad thai for the shrimp. She has no idea what makes him stay some nights, other than needing companionship that isn’t the Egg. Whatever his reasons, she never questions him in case he stops doing it. Instead, Missy watches him out of the corner of her eye and feels a strange, warm, unmistakably human emotion fill her. It takes her a few visits before she realizes it’s called gratitude.

It’s only been a few months since the Doctor saved her from execution and locked her away in here to serve out her sentence but there’s a persistent itch under her skin that gets harder to ignore with every passing day. She’s as bad at sitting still as he is and when she contemplates the two of them staying in one place for a thousand years, her imaginings always end in bloodshed. Whose blood tends to depend on her mood.

“So,” the Doctor asks around a mouthful of noodles. “How’re you doing?”

“Oh just _swell_.” Missy flicks a pea at him with her chopsticks and awards herself bonus points for landing it in his hair. “Thanks ever so much for asking.”

The Doctor grumbles and ruffles his hair to dislodge the offending vegetable. “You should be nicer to me,” he says, eyeing her sternly. “I was thinking of going shopping if you could manage to behave yourself.”

She smiles and it’s _disgusting_ how well bribery works on her. Only a few months and her standards have been lowered to behaving for new sheet music and nail polish. By the time her thousand years is through, she’ll be putty in his hands – an obedient pet he’ll train to follow him about on adventures. The truly disturbing bit is that she doesn’t altogether hate the idea. It’s been ages since she traveled with the Doctor and the thought of him actually allowing her aboard the TARDIS, to pilot alongside him, is more than she ever thought they’d have again.

So instead of throwing the rest of her dinner at his smug face and maybe kicking him in the shin with her heeled boot for good measure, Missy tightens her grip around her chopsticks and says through gritted teeth, “I need lipstick.” Just because she’s locked away in here doesn’t mean she can’t look pretty and if she can get him to buy her the poison kind without realizing it then maybe –

“I’m not getting you poison lipstick.”

Bugger it.

Wilting a bit, Missy glowers into her carton of fried rice and relents, “Normal, _boring_ lipstick it is then.”

The Doctor props his booted feet up on the antique coffee table he’d brought in for her last week. “What color?”

“Red, obviously.”

He makes an impatient noise. “Yes but do you want a true red or one with an orange undertone? Chanel makes this great…” He trails off when he realizes she’s staring at him. Breaking from her gaze with a huff and clearing his throat, he says, “Red. Got it. Anything else?”

Still a bit put out over how easily he’d seen through her poison lipstick ploy, she asks sweetly, “Tampons?”

To her utter disappointment, the Doctor doesn’t even blink – much less choke on his dinner and blush himself into a new regeneration like she’d hoped. Without even glancing up from his food, he asks, “Do you want me to stop off in the 53rd century or will 21st century Tampax do?”

Missy snaps her mouth shut before he spots her gaping at him, crossing her arms over her chest and lifting her chin. Studying him appraisingly for a moment, she takes in the relaxed set of his shoulders and the softness around his eyes that definitely hadn’t been there the first time she encountered this regeneration of his. Finally, she murmurs, “Learned a few tricks on Darillium, did you?”

The Doctor looks away and the light in his eyes dims just a bit.

She doesn’t care for the expression, nor the return of that tension in his jaw and shoulders. She likes it when he relaxes around her, when he feels like her friend again. Her mind works quickly, trying to think of something suitable to say to get rid of the unfortunate look on his face but she supposes the whole reason she’s in here is because she’s never been very good at being kind. Not even to her best mate.

“Well,” she eventually says, sniffing and glancing away. “At least she made you useful before she got herself killed. How did she die by the way? You never said.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the Doctor flinch. The chopsticks slip from his fingers into his carton of pad thai and he doesn’t bother picking them up again, setting the food aside and dropping his boots from her table. Voice noticeably strained, he says, “I haven’t told you because knowing River Song is a privilege. One you haven’t earned.”

She rolls her eyes and sucks in her bottom lip in an exaggerated pout.

Face blank, the Doctor rises to his feet and refuses to look at her. “Did you want anything else?”

“Cigarettes. And an espresso machine.” She smiles winningly, doing her best to disguise the regret she can feel curling around her hearts. Not for being flippant about his dead wife but because she’s driven him away again and she can never quite seem to figure out how to stop doing that.

“Right,” he mutters, reaching for his coat. “I’ll make a list and have Nardole pop out to the shops.”

She nods silently, watching him wrestle into his coat. He’s in such a hurry to get out of the vault and away from her that he doesn’t notice something fall from one of his pockets and drop soundlessly onto the chair where he’d been sitting. She says nothing, pursing her lips and waggling her fingers as he moves toward the door.

“Thanks for dropping by,” she trills, pasting on a faux grin. “We must do it again soon. I’ll only be at this address for the next thousand years, after all.”

Grumbling under his breath, the Doctor offers her nothing more than an irritated wave of his hand before he slips out and shuts the door behind him. Missy waits until she hears the sound of the lock clicking into place before she rises from her chair and moves to pick up her new treasure.

It’s a book – faded blue and patterned like the Doctor’s TARDIS. The pages are brittle, as though the book has been dropped in water a few times and dried out in the sun. Missy can smell the age in its musty pages, dating the book to be at least a few hundred years old as she cracks it open. The leather binding creaks and she hums to herself, picking delicately through the fragile pages.

“Not a book,” she murmurs, her lips curling into an intrigued smile when she spots the handwriting hidden away inside. “A diary.”

The curling script is obviously not the Doctor’s – far too neat and feminine. Missy flicks through the pages with her fingertips, glimpsing a few words as she goes. _My love_. _The_ _Silence_. _Manhattan_. _Idiot_. _Without hope, without witness, without reward_. _Darillium_.

Her eyes catch on that one, her breath hitching in her throat. This isn’t just any diary the Doctor is carrying around in his pocket like a religious pamphlet. It’s _hers_. The dead one. The hybrid he’d married. She should have known. The only scent imprinted onto its pages stronger than age is the smell of an inferior species. It positively reeks of her.

With a giddy noise at finding some way to pass the time until the Egg brings her breakfast in the morning, Missy tucks the book against her chest and skips toward her bed. She’ll curl up with a cup of tea and a lovely dramatic comedy. How domestic.

She nearly makes it to her destination before she hears the locking mechanism in the vault door disengage. Turning on her heel, she stares as the Doctor staggers inside with wide eyes. Missy frowns in disappointment. Clearly he’d gotten halfway down the corridor and noticed his security blankie was missing.

His panicked gaze lands on her - specifically the book she’s still holding – and he pales instantly. “Missy,” he says, his voice low and grave. “Give that back.”

She purses her lips, pretending to consider it. “But Doctor,” she says, pouting. “I haven’t even gotten through the first chapter yet.”

“ _Missy_ ,” he snarls.

She blinks at him. He’s gone all white-faced and furious. Usually he’s a bit more indulgent when she’s feeling playful. If he’s going to ruin the game by being such a mopey sod, it’s hardly going to be any fun. With a sigh, she holds out the book, dangling it between her fingertips. “Catch.”

She lets it drop but the Doctor lurches forward, only his superior reflexes saving the book before its spine can dent against the floor. He cradles the thing to his chest, his knuckles straining white from his grip. Like she’ll snatch it away from him and set it on fire. As if she could. He’d confiscated her blowtorch ages ago.

Watching how reverently he tucks the diary out of sight back into his coat, Missy almost hates him. And she certainly hates _her_ ; his silly little wife; the woman who still holds all of his devotion even after she’s gone. The two of them had only shared a few centuries together but Missy has been his friend – and sometimes enemy – their whole lives. Swallowing, she lifts her chin and straightens her spine, eyeing the Doctor without remorse as he curls shaking hands into fists.

“You don’t touch this book,” he warns, and her lip curls when she hears how his voice wavers. “Ever.”

“Fine.” She shrugs curtly, studying her nails. “Probably too maudlin and sentimental for my taste anyway. Add it to the list, would you? Real literature.”

The Doctor turns on his heel and leaves without another word, slamming the vault door shut behind him. When Nardole arrives with her things the next morning there are four shades of red lipstick, some nicotine patches, and a stack of self-help books on empathy.

_ii._

Playing chess against herself gets ever so dull after a couple of hours but really, it’s not as if she could manage to find an opponent capable of outsmarting her besides herself. Maybe the Doctor but his visits are unpredictable and he always pouts when she doesn’t follow the rules anyway. Missy eyes the Queen on the other side of the board and ponders how to topple her without letting herself know about it until it’s too late.

When the vault opens, she barely reacts other than the slight incline of her head as she listens to the Doctor’s little hobgoblin bumble his way to the table with her breakfast. She sniffs the air after a moment, still staring at the chessboard. Scrambled eggs and bacon this morning. Both overdone, judging by the smell. But he’s brought her favorite apricot jam and that juice she prefers from Waitrose so she’ll let him escape verbally unscathed this time.

“Morning, Missy,” he calls, and she twitches in annoyance. When she doesn’t respond, he sighs. “I have to go in half an hour and you know I can’t leave you unsupervised with the cutlery.” Under his breath, he mutters, “Not after what happened last time.”

Lips curling in remembrance, Missy loses herself for a moment in fond memories of the last time she’d held a knife in her hand and sighs with longing. The Doctor had been so angry he’d relegated her to plastic sporks for months. Even still... _worth it_.

Turning away from her chessboard, she drapes her arms over the back of her chair and studies the funny looking cyborg-cum-nanny currently setting the table. “And where is himself this morning? Rescuing a kitten from a tree? Wooing another plucky young assistant with his devil-may-care charms?”

Nardole snorts. “He’s grading essays in his office, actually.”

“How dull.” She droops a bit in disappointment, watching the Egg slather jam over her bagel. “He’s getting frightfully normal hanging around here.” She tucks her fist beneath her chin and purses her lips mockingly. “Shall we stage an intervention?”

“He’s fine,” Nardole mutters crossly, pouring her juice. “It’s not his first time sticking around one place for a while. Now eat your eggs before they get cold.”

“Ah,” she murmurs, eyes gleaming. “His ickle retirement with his dearly departed. How could I forget?”

The Egg stiffens as though he’d realized he’d said something he shouldn’t have. Refusing to meet her gaze, he fusses with the table setting instead of answering and Missy almost smiles. She hasn’t brought _her_ up in about ten years. Not since the last time when she’d gotten her hands on that diary and nearly made the Doctor wet himself. This might be fun.

Curling up in her chair, Missy studies Nardole over the headrest with narrowed eyes. “You knew her, didn’t you?”

Glancing cautiously over his shoulder at her, Nardole replies warily, “Worked for her nearly my whole life.”

“Hmm. What was she like?”

Finally giving up on getting her to eat the eggs, Nardole sighs and carries the Waitrose juice and bagel slathered in apricot jam to her. He sets the plate and cup down on the table beside her chair and turns around again, retreating as though worried she’ll bite if he gets too close. Silly thing, she hasn’t bitten him again since the first time. He’d tasted like a stale marshmallow.

At his stubborn refusal to engage in a bit of gossip, she whinges at him. “Oh come on. Tell me about her.” She pouts. “The Doctor says I should care more about other people. I’m engaging with the process. Don’t hamper my emotional development, Egg.”

He sighs again and blurts out, “She was brilliant, all right? Clever and kind and still scarier than you on your best day.”

Missy sniffs. “Can’t have been too brilliant. I’ve heard about her rather unfortunate parentage. Humans. _Ugh_.”

She’s heard a lot about River Song through the years, through stories and legends and hearsay. The Daleks do love to gossip. Not everything she’s heard can possibly be true. Word among half the galaxy is that River Song had killed the Doctor and that one clearly isn’t accurate considering the idiot is holding her hostage in here and occasionally shows up with dim sum. Besides, if anyone but Missy ever manages to accomplish permanently killing the Doctor, she’ll be quite cross.

“Tell me, Nardy,” she sighs, picking up her bagel. “Just between us girls…was the Doctor ever bored on Darillium? Ever try to escape the mutt and find a bit of mayhem?”

Nardole glares. “He didn’t need to go anywhere. River Song was mayhem enough all on her own.” He watches Missy take a delicate bite of her bagel and frowns. “I know it’s a difficult concept for you to wrap your devious mind around but they were actually happy.”

It’s the most he’s said to her probably the entire time she’s known the Egg. She watches the way his beady little eyes squint in irritation and hides a smile. Ah, a weak spot. How delicious. Obviously dear Nardole had been rather fond of the Doctor’s wife. All she needs to do now is push his wee buttons until he cracks.

“So you say,” she murmurs, sipping at her juice. “Though you’re not being very forthcoming about their little second honeymoon. Methinks you may have overstated just how close to River Song you actually were. Don’t know any of the juicy details, do you?”

Nardole huffs, busying himself with gathering up the cutlery he’d laid out on the table and picking up her plate of cold eggs and bacon. A muscle twitches in his cheek and she knows she’s hit a nerve of some sort. Deciding to jam her fingers into it and hope things get messy, Missy demurs, “Or… you do know all the details and you’re just trying to hide how miserable the Doctor was in retirement, the poor lamb. But we mustn’t blame her for being too dull. She’s only human, after all.”

Fist tightening around the cutlery, Nardole turns to face her. There’s an annoying expression on his face that Missy sees frequently in the Doctor’s companions – that odd little emotion called bravery. “I haven’t told you anything because it’s none of your business but if you know the Doctor as well as you claim to then you’ll know he never does anything he doesn’t want to do.” His nostrils flare and Missy stares in fascination, head tilted. “And you’ll also know that yeah he does tend to run away but he’s never been running from love and a family. Only the knowledge that he’d had all that once and lost it. With her, he found it again. He was happy. Living a normal, domestic life with her. Loving her, every day. So no, he didn’t get bored and he didn’t run away. He lost her and it nearly killed him.”

Missy blinks at him. The last thing she’d expected was for the Egg to grow a pair and actually have the courage to stand up to her. Apparently he hadn’t expected it either, judging by the panicked look that crosses his pudgy face the moment he finishes. She looks away, clearing her throat. “He’s always happy when he’s with them. But he manages to move on quite well when they leave. I see no difference between her and the other sillies.”

Nardole bristles. “Of course he moves on. He’s the Doctor – he has to. Doesn’t mean he didn’t grieve or that he isn’t still grieving.” At Missy’s skeptical glance, he scowls and _oh_ there’s that cloying bravery again. “He didn’t leave their bedroom for weeks and when he did it was only to find trouble. He was reckless and stupid and had a massive death wish. The only reason he’s still alive is because I promised her I’d look after him.”

Lip curling, Missy takes a vicious bite of her bagel. “And a promise from Saint River is eternally binding, is it?”

“River Song was no saint.” Nardole snorts, sounding amused now rather than insulted on behalf of the Doctor’s wee wife. “But she’s not only the reason the Doctor is still alive. She’s the reason you’re alive too.”

Missy arches an eyebrow and utters a dry, “Oh? Do tell.”

Nardole shakes his head. “All you need to know is she may be gone but her influence on the Doctor isn’t. That woman you insist on insulting is the reason your friend gave you another chance. And you’ll never mention her to him if you know what’s good for you.”

_Too lat_ e, she thinks, and frowns when Nardole moves toward the door. The last thing she wants is to be left alone to contemplate how she’s indebted to the Doctor’s dead wife for saving her life and possibly a very old friendship. The very idea makes her nauseous. “Sit down, Egg.”

He squints at her warily. “Why?”

“Because,” she explains, pinching the bridge of her nose. “While you may not be my first choice for a chess partner, you’re the only one I’ve got at the moment. Now sit and prepare to be eviscerated.”

Halfway to a chair, Nardole freezes and gapes at her.

Missy smiles innocently. “Metaphorically, of course.” As he sinks into the chair opposite her, she adds a cheery, “Probably.”

_iii._

As part of her rehabilitation, the Doctor had insisted she find healthier outlets for her manic energy. When her own suggestions – violent video games, smashing the patriarchy, and Ood hunting – had been met with baleful stares, the Doctor had offered his own recommendations. Missy, in turn, hadn’t been given much of a choice in the matter of actually doing them or not. He’d bought her a set of paints and made her watch Bob Ross videos via his Netflix account. If she paints one more mountainscape, she’s going to kill the Doctor and make it look like a _happy accident_. Which is how he finds himself with an office full of colorful, slightly morbid canvas art.

She’s in the middle of a painting depicting the bloody fall of Humpty Dumpty – starring Nardole, of course – when a knock at the door of her vault startles her out of her creative reverie. Paintbrush in hand, she stares over her shoulder and wonders when her sitters started knocking.

“Um, Missy? Are you in there? Sorry, of course you’re in there. Stupid question. It’s Bill, by the way. Hi.”

The tentative voice on the other side of the door is young and female and vaguely familiar. After a moment, she places it as the Doctor’s newest pet and nearly beams. Ooh, a new toy. How fun. Abandoning her painting, Missy tiptoes closer and presses her palm to the door. Outside, she hears the girl shuffle anxiously. “Something you need, poppet?”

At Bill’s sharp, startled breath, Missy smiles. “Uh, yeah. I actually had a question.”

Missy leans against the door and studies her nails. “Wouldn’t the Doctor be better suited to answering all your wide-eyed, breathless queries about the universe?”

The girl hesitates. “Well, normally. But I’m not sure he’ll want to talk about this and Nardole is always like a vault when it comes to the Doctor’s personal life. Erm, bad word choice. No offense.”

Biting back a snort of derision, Missy says, “So I’m your last resort. Flattering.”

Bill stutters. “No, of course not. I just-” She sighs. “Yeah. Sort of. But I mean, you used to be the Doctor’s friend right? So I figured you’d know a lot about him anyway.”

With a hum, Missy declares, “I know everything about him.”

“Even personal stuff?”

Intrigued, Missy arches a brow at the door. “His whole sad sob story, dear. Every embarrassing childhood memory, every bad hair day, every-”

“What about his wife?”

Missy stops short, glowering at the door in silence for a moment. She’s tempted to ask which one just to be petty but she knows exactly which of the Doctor’s wives Bill is referring to. The one he never seems to shut up about but at the same time never mentions at all. It’s like she’s an unseen presence standing at his shoulder and lurking in his eyes every bloody time she looks at him.

“It’s just…” Bill hesitates again. “I walked in on him having a conversation with her picture. And like, I get it. I talk to my Mum sometimes and pretend she answers me back but… he never talks about her. Except once. Can you – I mean – will you tell me about her?”

Crossing her arms over her chest, Missy presses her back into the door and sinks down. Settled on the floor with her skirts billowing around her and her knees drawn up, she admits sourly, “I’m afraid that’s the one gap in the Doctor’s life I can’t fill in for you, poppet.” She scrubs viciously at a splotch of paint staining the sleeve of her dress. “For all that man’s love of talking, he never says much about _her_.”

“Oh.” Bill sounds disappointed and Missy can’t even bring herself to feel any joy at letting her down. It’s difficult to gloat when she isn’t withholding information on purpose. “So you really don’t know anything about her?”

Missy shrugs, head lolling back against the door. “I know she’s dead.”

Bill sighs. “Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of. The thing is, he didn’t talk about her like she was gone – more like she went out for milk and she’d be back any second.”

Snorting, Missy shuts her eyes. “He’s a time traveler, dear. Technically, she _could_ pop back any second with milk.”

“Right,” Bill mutters, a frown in her voice. “But that would be kind of nice, yeah? Knowing she can always come back?”

With a hum, Missy opens her eyes and stares at the ceiling, a sudden uncomfortable thought striking her. “Or… it only makes it more difficult to let go. Knowing she could be around any corner, painfully alive again.” She blinks, shaking her head. Learning how to empathize is part of her recovery but learning to empathize with the Doctor’s sentimental relationship with his half-breed warrior princess is another matter entirely.

Oblivious to her moral quandary, Bill murmurs, “Never thought of it like that. No wonder he said he was still taken.”

Distracted from her irritation with herself, Missy sits up a little straighter and licks her lips. “What exactly did the Doctor tell you about her?” Sensing Bill’s hesitation, she coos, “Come now, don’t be shy. Just a bit of gossip between us card carrying xx chromosomes.”

“All right, fine. But only because I don’t see how this could aid you in world domination or whatever it is you’re plotting in there…” Bill clears her throat, like she’s about to begin some sort of ridiculous human fairytale, and Missy rolls her eyes. “He took me to the Frost Fair in 1814 and he let it slip that he’d been there before. Turns out it was a birthday surprise for his wife. He actually kidnaped Stevie Wonder and oh, I love this bit...”

The next time she sees the Doctor, Missy presents him with a painting of the Thames frozen over and a piano sitting on the ice. In the distance, two shadowy figures dance their way across the river. “What do you think?” She beams at him. “Took me ages to get the elephant right.”

The Doctor stares at it with a stricken look on his pale face, his eyes narrowed. “What is this?”

Missy shifts impatiently. “It’s a present, silly.” When he says nothing, continuing to gaze at the painting like he’s reliving it and not enjoying the experience at all like she’d hoped, she explains uneasily, “I was tired of sketching mountains and seascapes and the Egg. Thought I’d try my hand at something a wee bit different.” She bats her lashes at him hopefully. “Do you like it?”

Instead of the thanks she’d expected for immortalizing such a happy memory, the Doctor presses his lips into a thin line of displeasure. His expression hardens into something she scarcely recognizes. “This is cruel,” he mutters, eyes still trained on the painting. Missy feels her triumphant grin begin to fade. “Even for you.”

He turns on his heel and stalks out without a backward glance, leaving Missy standing in the middle of her vault and struggling to piece together what she’d done wrong. He doesn’t visit again for weeks.

_iv._

The one benefit of spending the majority of her days remembering the atrocities she’s committed and weeping over them like a pathetic human is that the Doctor spends more time with her now. He damn well should, considering he’s the reason she cares about the harm she’s caused; the reason she dwells on their terrified faces and the pleas for mercy from people whose names she never bothered to learn. She never cared before. Never gave a second thought to the trail of broken bodies lining her path through the universe. Until now.

And she hates him for it.

“Do you want me to go?” He asks when she tells him this, eyeing her with pity that makes her eyes sting all over again. When she doesn’t reply, he tries again gently, “Missy, do you want me to leave you alone for a bit?”

She shakes her head, her hearts seizing at the very notion of being left alone in the dark to wrestle with these demons by herself. “Please don’t,” she whispers.

The Doctor sighs, moving from his armchair to sit beside her on the settee – his every movement cautious, as though expecting her to lash out. Instead, the moment he’s settled, she curls into his side and lets her exhausted head fall to the crook of his shoulder. He stiffens instantly but when she does nothing but shut her eyes, he begins to relax. His body sinks comfortably into the cushions and when he lets out another sigh, she wonders when he last slept. Probably when she did.

She breathes him in, marveling that he still manages to smell like that scrawny lad on Gallifrey even thousands of years later. She can still see the two of them, sprawled on their backs in the red grass of her father’s fields. They’d gazed up at the stars and promised one day they’d see them all – together. A pang of regret squeezes her hearts and she draws in a shuddering breath, turning her nose into his collar. “Tell me a story, Theta.”

He stills at the childhood name, speechless.

Missy bites her lip. “Please?”

After another tense moment of silence, he asks warily, “What kind of story? You know most of mine.” He pauses and she knows he’s thinking of his last regeneration. The one she never got to meet. She’s seen pictures though – spent an hour laughing at his floppy hair and baby face, wishing she’d had the chance to try strangling him with that silly bowtie. “I suppose I could tell you about the time I met Vincent Van Gogh. Or when I went up against the mother of a race of vampire fish.” His mouth twitches smugly. “She fancied me.”

“No,” she interrupts, sticking out her tongue. “None of that will do. Tell me about Darillium.”

Formerly relaxed and trusting at her side, the Doctor goes rigid at once. He’s quiet – too quiet. She can’t even hear him breathing. Still, she doesn’t move away from him. She thinks about humming a tune to pass the time but there’s something in the back of her mind – an awareness she’d thought long dead – whispering that such a thing might be unwise, or even insensitive. She bites her tongue against the urge to whisper the words of that damnable animated ice princess about letting go, waiting with her hands twisted in her skirt.

Finally, her efforts at being good are rewarded. Instead of shouting at her, the Doctor asks, “Why?”

Missy peeks at him from her place against his shoulder, staring at the tense line of his jaw. There’s stubble there too, like he hasn’t bothered to shave in the last forty-eight hours. “Because,” she replies, honest in a way she only ever is on bad days – when guilt and self-loathing are loudest. Like the drums set to a different beat. “It doesn’t have a happy ending but for once it isn’t my fault.”

The Doctor makes a soft noise of disagreement. “That’s where you’re wrong, Missy.” For a moment, her hearts climb into her throat and she experiences the blind panic of wondering if somehow she had managed to kill his wife in one of her other bodies and then subsequently forgot about it. “It did have a happy ending.”

She exhales an unsteady breath, swallowing back the dread that had made a home in the back of her throat in the span of three seconds. If she’d killed River Song, he’d never have forgiven her. The last seventy years would have been spent in vain, trying to regain the trust of a friend she’d lost the moment she’d done away with his precious wife. Forcing levity into her voice, she stares at his two-day stubble and trills, “You call your wife dying a happy ending? You know, there _are_ divorce lawyers, dearest.”

“A happy ending doesn’t mean forever,” he murmurs. He’s right beside her but he sounds far away, as though he’s forgotten he’s sitting in a vault with his childhood friend and worst enemy. She knows somehow that he’s repeating _her_ words. Wherever he is right now, he’s in her company again. “It just means time.”

Missy gives him only a moment to reminisce, knowing from experience that any longer than that will just make it more difficult to return to the cruel present. “I wasn’t trying to be spiteful, you know. With the painting.”

She hasn’t brought it up again since the day she gave it to him and witnessed the look on his face. Even now, she remembers yawning regret like a black hole in the pit of her stomach; the way he’d stared at her like she’d gone out of her way to hurt him when she’d been doing her best to be kind.

The Doctor swallows audibly. “I know.” He turns his head and his lips brush her crown fondly. With a sigh, he repeats, “I know.”

Relieved, Missy clears her throat. “Right well. Enough of that then.” She tucks her legs beneath her, settles her head more solidly against his arm, and sighs. “Go on now. Wax poetic about being boring and domestic. Mummy’s listening.”

A few decades ago, he might have snapped at her and stomped out but he’s learning her again – learning that she doesn’t always mean what she says and certainly not when whatever she’s said has managed to wound him. At least not lately, anyway. Still, he keeps sitting there in silence. He endures her head on his shoulder and her hair tickling his cheek, the way her knee bounces impatiently and jars them both. Teeth clenched and eyes far away, he can’t seem to bring himself to tell the story she’d requested.

Missy stares at him for a long moment, trying to determine whether or not she should be insulted that he won’t talk to her about his ickle retirement with his wee wife. It’s only the ring that gives him away – the way he rubs his thumb over it subconsciously, as if it’s a worry stone or a rosary. Like it holds comfort no mere mortal can hope to understand.

It’s been seventy years, she realizes, and he’s still wearing the damn thing. On the heels of the realization that her best friend has become far too sentimental and human in his last few bodies, is the realization that it’s not that he doesn’t want to talk about Darillium with Missy. The Doctor has never spoken of it to anyone at all. It’s sacred.

With mercy that still doesn’t come naturally to her, like walking in shoes far too big, she lets him keep the days with his love tucked away safe from prying eyes. Instead, she turns her gaze away from him to the stack of Wonder Woman comics the hobgoblin had left for her on the coffee table when she’d requested a list of strong female role models. “How did she die, Doctor?”

He breathes in like he hears what she’s really asking. _Have I earned enough of your trust yet?_

It takes him a while – longer even than when she’d asked about Darillium – but eventually he breathes out again and with it comes a confession. “She died the day I met her. She sent a message to older me but it went wrong and instead I showed up. Didn’t even know her name.” His voice catches and he clears his throat. “We were on the Library planet-” 

“Four thousand twenty-two people,” Missy supplies softly, remembering the legend.

The Doctor hums his agreement. “Of course it didn’t take long to discover the reason for all those missing people was the Vashta Nerada.”

Missy breathes in and holds it, her mind racing. “Of course. They came in the books.”

“Right again,” the Doctor murmurs. “Except they didn’t devour those people. The hard drive had taken them – _saved_ them the only way it could.”

“It couldn’t sustain them,” she realizes. “You had to get them back out again.”

The Doctor nods. “But first it needed more memory.”

She scowls. “You planned to use yours.”

“Yes.”

“Idiot.”

The Doctor smiles, soft and pained. “Always.”

Missy huffs, momentarily forgetting in the thrill of the story just why he’s telling it to her in the first place. “Well, what happened then? Clearly it didn’t work if you’re here now.”

He falls silent for a moment, growing still at her side. When he speaks again, his voice is heavy with a grief as fresh as if she’d died last week. “River took my place.” And of course she did. Of course the Doctor married someone as stupid and noble and self-sacrificial as he is. It was probably a bit like fancying himself. “She died to preserve our future while I sat there like a twit, with no idea I’d just watched my wife burn herself up.”

Missy listens to the strain in his voice and the audible way he swallows, feeling her own throat tighten in accordance. She risks a glance at his face and immediately wishes she hadn’t. The raw pain in his eyes is more than she can stand. It reminds her far too much of her victims, the ones she’s doing her best not to think of. Even so, she can’t bring herself to look away. Maybe if she forces herself to see the Doctor’s pain it will somehow make up for all the days she was too busy burning worlds to see anyone else’s.

She peers into his old eyes and wonders what it must have been like to fall in love with someone who was already dead. To hear them laugh and remember their lifeless face. To hold their hand and know where it’s all headed. The futility of it is too depressing even for her. She blinks quickly and looks away, dashing a hand beneath her eye before the Doctor can see her shed a tear for his stupid, sentimental marriage and his stupid, noble, half-blood of a wife.

She keeps her fingers curled tight around his arm and when she looks up again, she finds him watching her warily, his eyes red and glistening. With a shake of her head, she whispers, “I’m sorry.”

The Doctor stares at her wordlessly and for the first time, she thinks he might actually believe her.

_v._

Missy lifts the goggles from her eyes and relocates them to the top of her head, narrowed gaze scrutinizing the wiring beneath the TARDIS console. It had been a teensy bit of a disaster when she’d started hours ago but she’d slowly and methodically untangled the mess of wires, bubblegum, and duct tape into something that didn’t resemble a fire hazard. Nodding once to herself, she pats the space on the floor next to her and sighs. “There now, doesn’t that feel better?”

Around her, the TARDIS offers nothing more than a grudging hum.

Considering her past history with the ship, Missy doesn’t let the attitude bother her. “You’re welcome,” she says instead, climbing to her feet. She plucks at her skirts in a mock curtsy and smiles. “T’was no trouble at all.”

Between seventy years of a stationary life and now gallivanting around the universe with his new pet, the Doctor hasn’t spared much thought for ship maintenance. Luckily for his TARDIS, Missy doesn’t have a thing on her schedule for the next nine-hundred and thirty years. Plenty of time for the two of them to learn to get along. She hopes. It might be rather difficult to travel with the Doctor at the end of her sentence if his stroppy ship is going to insist on holding a grudge.

Maneuvering the goggles from her head, she hangs them on a lever on the console and dusts off her hands on her skirts. She turns in a circle, heels clicking on the floor, and whistles a little tune. It could be ages until the Doctor and his disposables return from their latest good deed and she doesn’t fancy sitting still like a good girl waiting for them to get back. There isn’t, however, much to occupy her time in a ship that sends her a little shock every time she touches something she shouldn’t.

“I don’t suppose you feel like showing me something fun, hmm?” She tilts her head, eyeing the silent time rotor. “Come on, let me have a peek at his room? His embarrassing video collection? Ooh, show me something about the wife?”

Still, the TARDIS makes not a peep. Even the Doctor’s vehicle is giving her the silent treatment. Missy pouts. This redemption rot is definitely for the birds. She could always select a book from the Doctor’s shelves and leave him derogatory notes in the margins…

A flickering light at the top of the stairs catches her eye and she pauses mid-plotting to stare. For a moment she thinks it’s just another maintenance issue to add to her Honey Do list but the TARDIS is a clever bint. The ship shuts off every light in the console room, leaving Missy in total darkness save for the flickering bulb at the top of the stairs.

Missy inclines her head, lips twisted in wry amusement. “Fine, I’ll play. No need to be dramatic about it.” She moves toward the stairs and the lights come on again – but only after she nearly trips in the dark. Gathering her skirts and her dignity, Missy mutters _cow_ under her breath and stomps up the stairs.

It’s been ages since she’s been able to explore the Doctor’s TARDIS and there are bound to be some new additions to the place so she allows herself to be herded down the corridor like a silly lost lamb. At first, she suspects the ship might be toying with her for a laugh. The first few rooms Missy stumbles across are at once ridiculous and dull – a billiard room, a swimming pool, a room filled with glass cases that seems to exist solely to house his guitar collection, and a theatre clearly modeled after the State Opera House in Vienna. How disappointing. She’d been hoping to happen upon the Doctor’s wardrobe and nick all of his left shoes.

It’s only at the end of the corridor that she finally discovers something potentially interesting. It’s a cozy little room just off the vast, echoing library. At first glance it doesn’t look like much. The shelves are stuffed with yet more books and there’s a sturdy antique desk commanding most of the space but there are a few personal touches that pique Missy’s interest – picture frames and knick-knacks and handwritten notes that offer a glimpse of something a teensy bit more intimate than a room full of guitars.

Abandoning her spot in the doorway, Missy creeps into the study like a thief. Not, of course, that she has any intention of stealing anything from the dusty old room. Which is probably the only reason the TARDIS has allowed her inside, come to think of it. She avoids the plethora of delectable information available on the cluttered desk for the moment, moving instead to get a closer look at the picture frames tucked in between the books on the shelves.

Despite never having met his eleventh regeneration, Missy spots the bow-tied fop instantly. He features in nearly every photograph in the room, usually next to a woman with massive hair and a devious grin.  In some of the photographs there’s a ginger girl and a plain fellow with a big nose but for the most part, the pictures are of the Doctor in various incarnations and this woman. They’re on the beach together splashing in the waves; watching a star go supernova in the deserts of Bouken; snogging beneath mistletoe on a snowy street corner; dancing their way across a ballroom in Paris. They’re picnicking on Asgard when the Doctor sported the spiky hair and sandshoes; gazing moonily at each other on a balcony when the Doctor was in his sixth body and the pair of them had matching hair; and there again with the handsome one with the velvet coat and frilly sleeves, wrapped in his arms and twirling a lock of his luscious hair round her fingertip.

It’s only as the pictures become more intimate and domestic, all seeming to have been taken on the same planet, that Missy sees the appearance of the Eyebrows. It’s then that she finally concedes this woman must be the wife. She feels her mouth twitch in unexpected glee. She’s in River Song’s study. How delicious.

She scrutinizes the pictures taken with the Doctor’s newest face with particular interest, trying to understand what it is about this woman and this relationship that makes it so difficult for him to let go. There’s a picture of the Doctor sleeping, curled around a pillow with his hair unkempt and his expression unnervingly peaceful. Missy catches a glimpse of a feminine hand tucked into his, like he couldn’t bring himself to relinquish her even while he slept.

The next is the Doctor settled on the edge of their bed, shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows and guitar on his lap, his brows knit together in concentration as he plays. He looks rumpled and at ease, his feet bare and his collar undone; his shoulders relaxed and far from the tense line she sees so often now. Another – this time of the two of them sitting on their knees in a garden, River holding a trowel and laughing while the Doctor gazes at her with soft eyes.

The next photo is of the two of them sitting under the stars and surrounded by a brood of children, seemingly in the middle of some elaborate story. Missy nearly loses what’s left of her sanity scrutinizing each grubby little face for any of the Doctor’s familiar features just in case there’s some brat with his DNA wandering the universe. She lets out a sigh of relief when she’s satisfied the Doctor hadn’t managed to procreate during his retirement and pointedly moves away from the pictures.

Besides the photographs, the rest of the shelves have ancient artifacts in place of pride alongside archaeology texts and Missy surmises with a faint sense of horror that the Doctor has certainly lowered his standards in the last few hundred years. With a sniff, she pivots on her heel and finally turns her attention to the desk in the middle of the room.

She picks up a random stack of papers and thumbs idly through them, tsking in disappointment when she discovers most of it is just research, plans for boring archaeology digs, and lecture notes. Among the mundane, however, she unearths a few scraps that appear to be love notes. She flips through them, eyes scanning the words eagerly. Some of them are nauseatingly soppy and others are absolutely filthy. All of them are in circular Gallifreyan and written in the Doctor’s distinct penmanship.

_Ugh_.

One in particular catches her eye – a very dirty ode to a freckle pattern on the inside of River’s thigh – and Missy smirks at it despite herself. She contemplates pocketing it to taunt the Doctor later but stops mid-thievery – a warning groan from the TARDIS and her own reawakening conscience getting the better of her. With a pout, she lets the smutty note flutter back to the desk and resumes her snooping anew.

The letter only garners her attention because it’s the sole scrap of the Doctor’s handwriting in English. It’s faded and a bit yellowed around the edges, clearly a beloved memento read often. Missy sniffs the page. Beneath the scent of old ink and dust, she determines the age of the letter must be at least a few centuries, maybe more. She scans the letter, wondering what could be so important that it merited saving for so long.

_~~River~~ _ _,_

_~~Melody~~ _ _,_

_Hello dear,_

_I’m sure you must be angry with me for slipping out with your parents while you were sleeping. I don’t blame you - for any of what happened today, please remember. But I need you to know that it wasn’t easy to leave you. It never is. Funny how it only seems to grow more difficult with time. But ~~River~~ ~~Melody~~  honey, it’s the only way. A lifetime of ingrained hatred isn’t going to just disappear with a kiss, ~~no matter how brilliant a kiss it was~~. You need time, dear. You need a whole universe of distance between us. So no matter how much I want to sit at your bedside and hold your hand, I have to let go. But just for now. I promise._

_There isn’t much I can tell you – spoilers – but I want you to know it will get easier. One day, you’ll look at me and your first instinct won’t be to reach for a weapon. You’ll reach for my hand instead and we’ll run. Oh, how we’ll run. It’s our favorite bit, the running. Well it might be your second favorite bit, actually. Mine too, come to think of it... Blimey, is it hot in here?_

_Sorry, got distracted._

_The point is you need to make your own way for now. Nothing is set in stone. There’s so much to come for you but you have to want it and not just because it’s what’s expected of you or what you think I want. No one gets to make decisions for you anymore. Not even me. I know you’ve been taught to see me as a demon and learned from Amy to see me as a god but I promise you I’m just a man. I have made so many mistakes in my life. You know that better than anyone. In the future, if it’s what you choose, there will be days I will be the one to look to you for guidance. You always seem to know what is right and what is wise. You always know how to be kind._

_I know it seems impossible now and who can blame you after the life you’ve had, eh? But one day, you won’t have to wonder how to do the right thing or even wonder what the right thing is. You’ll just know. And on that day, River Song – Melody Pond – you’ll be free._

_~~Best (no, that’s rubbish)~~ _

_~~See you soon (wait, spoilers)~~ _

_~~Bugger it, you’ve already heard me say it anyway~~ _

_Love,_

_The Doctor_

_P.S. Have I thanked you yet for saving my life? You didn’t have to, you know. But you did. And isn’t that amazing? You made your own choice. And I’m never been more proud of you. A whole lifetime of being brainwashed to kill me and you saved me instead. It’s very you – refusing to do as you’re told. I shouldn’t like that. ~~Kind of do a bit.~~_

It’s a sentimental, rambling bit of prose reminiscent of a schoolboy with a crush. And yet…Missy swallows, rattled beyond measure. The last thing she’d ever expected was to have something in common with the Doctor’s wife but there are similarities between them she cannot ignore when they’re glaring off the page at her. It appears Missy isn’t the only one struggling to overcome her murderous tendencies and earn the Doctor’s trust. Though clearly River had a more successful go at it.

So the rumors about River Song’s origins were true…Funny, she’d never have imagined such a woman as the Doctor’s type. Missy had always assumed he was more inclined toward perfect ickle goody two shoes like him. Instead he’d married someone with poor morals, a love of weapons, and an itch to destroy him. What a kinky old man the Doctor has become.

But River Song had changed, hadn’t she? She didn’t remain that trained psychopath determined to rid the world of the Doctor and his flawed definition of _good_. She’d become someone the Doctor loved and trusted above all others. A trust that Missy herself used to hold, before she’d shattered it beyond what even the Doctor could tolerate. She remembers all too well what it was like to have that trust – the exhilaration of knowing she had a friend who believed in her and would forgive her anything. Now there is only a man who watches her with wary eyes, like he’s still waiting for her to break what’s left of his hearts.

Missy drops the letter and squares her shoulders, yanking open a desk drawer a little too roughly. If that half breed abomination of his can overcome a lifetime of brainwashing and become someone the Doctor mourns for centuries after she’s gone, then sod it – Missy can stop being bad and make him her friend again. If nothing else, she wants to try.

Still fuming that the Doctor’s wife is apparently better at this redemption thing than she is, Missy drops her gaze to the contents of the drawer. She freezes mid-glower. She’d expected the collection of knives and lipstick. Had even expected to see more archaeology rubbish and the scattered photos too scandalous to display. What she hadn’t expected was the little piece of 51st century tech tucked reverently on top of a scrap of shimmering green fabric embroidered with the word _Song_.

A neural relay.

It’s clearly already been used, the green lights long since faded. Empty now, it sits forgotten in this drawer but she knows what these nasty little buggers are for. Barbaric human technology meant to preserve the consciousness of a person for a short time after death. Missy stares at it, recalling the Doctor’s words about the Vashta Nerada in the library where he met and lost his wife. _The hard drive had taken them –_ saved _them the only way it could_.

Oh, that utter pillock.

He’d saved her mind in the database; preserved her with the closest thing to a Gallifreyan burial he could manage outside of Gallifrey. Of course he had. Even when she was just a stranger to him, he must have felt the way time had tangled itself around them, coiling like a snake. An unending orborous. He’d known River was important, even if he didn’t know how or why just yet. Of course his god complex and severe case of survivor’s guilt would never let him just walk away.

What she doesn’t understand is why the silly sausage had never finished saving her. Pining and moping about like his wife is gone forever when he could bloody well go and get her any time he likes. Oh, she could strangle him. If she still did that sort of thing, of course. _Why_ hasn’t he completed the job? The only thing left to do is acquire River Song a new body and download her consciousness into it.

Oh.

That’s it, isn’t it? He doesn’t want to get his hands dirty.

“Idiot,” she seethes, scowling at the empty relay.

If River Song is even half Gallifreyan – and she must be, to be able to read those soppy love notes from the Doctor – then a library data core is no place for a mind like that. It may have been as close as a disgraced Time Lord like the Doctor could get but it isn't the same as the Matrix. Not nearly. How long has his wife been in there? Years? Decades? Centuries? If she isn’t mad yet, she will be. And soon. The Doctor had as good as ensured it, trapping a creature of time in a place where time doesn’t exist.

It would be so easy to find River Song a brand new physical form. If there’s one thing Missy is rather good at, it’s making spare bodies. With his wife restored to him and all thanks to Missy, the Doctor might even trust her again. But he’ll be furious if she doesn’t go about it the right way. She can already hear him going on about innocent lives and never learning her lesson.

She huffs.

There are other ways – more seemly ways. Clones and androids and flesh duplicates a few years before they gained sentience. Maybe she’ll use one of those, or some other method she hasn’t even thought of yet. She’ll find a way that won’t make the Doctor angry or disappointed, something that might even make him proud. If she can bring back his wife out of the goodness of her hearts, without hurting anyone in the process, maybe he’ll finally believe she’s changed. Maybe they can be friends again.

She’ll do it, she decides, slipping the neural relay into her pocket and slamming the drawer shut. Right after this test the Doctor keeps going on about.

_+i._

The moment she opens her eyes, she knows where she is. There’s soft grass beneath her and blue sky above her. In the distance, she can hear the faint roar of the ocean and the breeze carries the scent of salt and sea mist. She can feel the wind on her face but the air feels still – except it isn’t air at all. It’s time. Or more precisely, the lack of time. Its absence itches under her skin and nags at her mind like something she’s forgotten, something waiting on the tip of her tongue if only she could just remember what it was.

Missy pats her pocket, knowing without looking that the neural relay she’d nicked is still there. Of course the Doctor had known she’d taken it. Just as he’d known she was truly on his side in the end. She had taken his proffered hand and looked into his eyes, letting him feel the knife concealed up her sleeve. Letting him know she would not abandon and betray him – not again. And in return for her loyalty, he’d tried to save her the same way he’d saved his wife.

As the stillness around her burns at the back of her throat, Missy feels a brief moment of panic at the fate that awaits her here. Cut off from time like a wounded soldier missing a limb, slowly going mad with the knowledge that she can still feel what isn’t there. She’s only just begun to regain a bit of her sanity. She won’t lose it again so the Doctor can feel better about himself.

Remembering the knife still tucked away in her sleeve, Missy shuts her eyes to the blue sky overhead and scrambles for it with shaking hands. She strokes the blade with her fingertip, just to test that it will get the job done, and brings it to her wrist.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Knife biting into her but not yet breaking the skin, Missy stills at the sudden sound of a calm and knowing voice.

“You’re already dead so it won’t do you any good. You’ll have the hangover from hell once the system reboots you.” The voice sighs, almost longingly. “Trust me, I’ve tried.”

Biting her tongue hard enough to taste the tang of blood filling her mouth, Missy growls under her breath and opens her eyes. Concealing the knife back up her sleeve, she sits up slowly and turns her head. She recognizes River Song instantly, her ridiculous hair a cloud of ginger around her smug face as she lounges nearby in a bright blue adirondack chair, a cup of tea and a copy of _The Time Traveler’s Wife_ resting beside her.

Eyes narrowed, Missy says, “I don’t know if I should be insulted or flattered that he stuck me in here with you.”

River clucks her tongue, her smile dimpling. “Never make a choice when you can have both, Missy.” She waves a hand at the empty chair beside her and Missy blinks when a steaming teacup and a bowl of sugars appears on the arm. “Sit down, dear. Put your feet up.”

Missy doesn’t move, frowning suspiciously. “I know who you are because of his pictures. How do you know who I am?”

River arches an eyebrow, overconfident in that way Missy knows the Doctor can’t resist. “I have every book ever written at my disposal and a wayward husband to keep track of. Do you really think I didn’t look you up?” She pauses then, some of that innate swagger fading as she drops her gaze to her tea and asks tentatively, “He has pictures of me?”

Missy shrugs, glancing away. “Apparently he keeps one on his desk, the sentimental sod.”

Clearly pleased by this, River smiles softly and bites her lip. “He hasn’t forgotten,” she murmurs, shaking her head. “I always thought he’d do his best to forget and move on but he’s really not afraid to remember this go round, is he?”

Missy feels her lip curl, eyeing the girlish flush of River Song’s cheeks. It’s just what she’d expect from one of the Doctor’s pets – that shining belief that he always does the right thing. “You think this isn’t forgetting you?” She gestures irritably around them. “Look where you are, poppet. A dusty book left to mold on a shelf while he swans off to the next adventure.”

River shakes her head again, pursing her lips. “You’re his best friend. Surely you know him better than that.” She looks away, out toward the waves crashing against the shore in the distance. “He doesn’t know what he’s condemned us to. He thought he was doing what was best, giving us a Gallifreyan afterlife the only way he could.”

“Except it’s _not_ an afterlife,” Missy snarls, fingers twitching for the knife she’d put away. Bugger what the mutt says, she’ll slit her wrists until the system fries from trying to revive her again and again. “It’s a prison sentence. Another vault he’s locked me away in because he thinks his version of _good_ is absolute.”

With a hum of acknowledgement, River casts pained eyes away from the sea and back to Missy. “You think I feel differently? I spent nearly my whole life in one prison or another and now I can’t even be free in death.”

The bitterness in her voice startles Missy into silence. She tilts her head, studying River’s clenched jaw and the way her nails bite into her palms. One of the Doctor’s pets had never had the gall to be _interesting_ before. Something close to kinship sinks its sharp claws into Missy’s chest and she breathes out, “You hate it here too?”

River smiles and it’s tired but dangerous – enough to make Missy remember that this woman may be the Doctor’s tame little wife now but she’d been a psychopath too, once. “If you’re quite through contemplating a murder-suicide, I’m sure between the two of us we can find a way out of paradise. Even if we have to burn it to the ground in the process.” Her eyes flick to the book beside her and she strokes a gentle fingertip down the cover page. “And then we can talk about making the Doctor see the error of his ways. If you like.”

Missy eyes her appraisingly, grudging respect seeping into her bones against her will. The mongrel certainly isn’t what she’d expected from someone in such close association with the Doctor. When she’d imagined the outcome of her own rehabilitation, she’d always pictured losing herself entirely – her sharp tongue and clever plans burnt to ash and replaced with sunny optimism and sugar-sweet words. It’s somewhat of a relief to see she needn’t rebuild herself from scratch to gain the Doctor’s approval.

Slowly, she slinks across the grass and sinks into the chair beside the Doctor’s wife. She drops a sugar cube into her tea and hums to herself, her eyes glittering. “All right, half-breed. You’ve got a deal.”

“Well then,” River grins, her teacup clinking amiably against Missy’s. “To unexpected alliances.”

Tilting her head, Missy brings the cup to her lips. “To freedom.”

“And the Doctor,” River murmurs, hand dropping once more to fondly stroke the cover of her book. “May she always keep the light on for us.”

The tea is halfway down Missy’s throat before the words register. She chokes, coughing delicately. “Apologies, hybrid,” she rasps, attempting nonchalance. “But did your primitive little mouth just say _she_?” There’s no hiding the thrill of possibility evident in her voice. Her eyes widen and she whispers, “Did the Doctor finally upgrade?”

River conjures a plate of biscuits out of thin air and offers them to her. “Help me get out of here and you can see for yourself.”

Missy pauses, turning over their problem in her mind briefly. She’s been thinking about how to spring River Song from the Library ever since she found the neural relay on the TARDIS but she’d never imagined she would have to break herself out as well. “I don’t suppose you know anything about data corruption?”

“Oh, I think you’d be surprised.” River selects a dainty biscuit from the plate and her teeth gleam as she bites into it. “I’m familiar with all _sorts_ of corruption.”

“Do you know what, half breed?” Surprise and grudging admiration at war in her smile, Missy eyes the Doctor’s wife wonderingly. On the horizon, the ocean roars its fury and the sun glints off the crashing waves. “I think I’m going to like you.”


End file.
